U.K. tops U.S. for smart TV

When MTV launched “The Real World,” the ground it broke became a sinkhole sucking American TV into a glut of reality shows and programming designed for passive absorption over active engagement.
Let’s establish one point now to help you decide if you want to read any further. I have never seen a single reality show. “The Real World,” “Survivor,” and “American Idol” hold zero appeal to me. If you enjoy those shows, then we disagree and the rest of this will probably just hack you off.
Honey Boo Boo Child? Seriously?!
While a few gems lurk in the muck of American television–House MD (RIP), Fringe, and Touch immediately come to mind–the BBC has been cranking out cerebral hits for decades. I thank Netflix for opening me up to a whole new world of smart television programming with shows including “Dr. Who,” “Eleventh Hour,” and “Sherlock.” These shows push my intellect and entertaining with interesting, complex plots that make me think.
From my humid perch here in the Southeast U.S., I cannot claim to watch a steady stream of British broadcasting. Lacking that research, I can’t claim that producers across the Atlantic have been able to resist the siren call of reality TV. That would be unrealistic. I can say I enjoy the challenging BBC shows I choose to watch.

Custom CSS in Movable Type 5

As I covered in my last post, I have two subdomains: one for the CaSt blog and another for linked items (actually, there’s a third for archives).
Each subdomain has its own css file. For my purposes, all three use the same code and I was trying to manage updates on all three. It struck me what a waste of effort that is when I glanced at the beginning of the default styles.css document where the main css elements are imported into the file like so:
@import url(https://carryingstones.com/mt-static/themes-base/blog.css);
My latest discovery led me to pull all of my custom css into a single file—cast.css—and import it into the root styles.css in the respective directories.
Note that you can make those changes in your text editor of choice and upload them using your preferred file transfer methods; however, you have to save and publish each of the updated pages through the Movable Type dashboards. Find the appropriate files to republish under Design → Templates, then select the Stylesheet template (styles.css).
My apologies to anyone who may be rolling their eyes at this MT newbie. I’ll move on to other more entertaining items soon. I am writing about such basics because I had such a difficult time finding helpful tutorials, and hope to help others with articles like this one.

Movable Type css with subdomains

Update: I spoke too soon. My initial fix did not work (see strike below. The fix that actually worked for me follows. –elb 2012-09-17 12:21:24
Adding subdomains to my new Movable Type 5 website screwed up the links to my css stylesheets.
The fix is easy and I think it will hold up over template changes and updates, but as an MT newbie it took me a while to track down.
First, my setup here on my site looks something like this:
carryingstones.com
blog.carryingstones.com
linked.carryingstones.com
In the template governing the html head, the links to the stylesheets were pointing to the relative domain. This worked fine at the root level, carryingstones.com, but broke when it moved to a subdomain (blog., and linked.).

Updating the styles.css at the root level seemed to fix my formatting problem. I changed from this:
@import url(/mt-static/themes-base/blog.css);
@import url(/mt-static/support/themes/professional-blue/professional-blue.css);
…to this:
@import url(https://carryingstones.com/mt-static/themes-base/blog.css);
@import url(https://carryingstones.com/mt-static/support/themes/professional-blue/professional-blue.css);

OK, I got it. I was on the right track but in the wrong place. It ended up being a huge MT rookie oversight that was quickly repaired by updating mt-config.cgi with urls instead of relative directory paths. Now, it looks like this:
StaticWebPath https://carryingstones.com/mt-static/
StaticFilePath https://carryingstones.com/home/carrying/public_html/mt-static
…and so far so good. I’ll let you know if I find anything else.

The yellow flag must be down!

Our over-sized plastic mailbox has an extra plastic tab that pops up every time the door opens.

Ding! You’ve got mail!

The flag must be down!The tab is adorned with a bright yellow sticker you can see from the house. A glance from the window prevents a fruitless lap to an empty mailbox. That tab is a terrific life hack as long as everyone who fetches the mail remembers to lower the flag.

Everyone doesn’t remember.

Obsession: an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person’s mind

If I see the yellow flag is up, I have to check the mail. It makes me nuts to drive home 22.3 miles in my car with the broken air conditioner after a 12-hour slog to stumble through the yard weighed down with my computer bag and empty coffee mug and the stress of the day because the yellow flag is up and there is no mail.

Why couldn’t they just put the flag down? They know it’s empty. Why are they making me check an empty mailbox?!

Compulsion: an irresistible urge to behave in a certain way, esp. against one’s conscious wishes

Obsession drives compulsion.

Insanity is hereditary

When I was growing up, my mom had a faded green t-shirt that said “Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids!” That shirt cracked me up, but maybe I was cracking up in more than one way. Things mom still says today:

“For the life of me, I can’t remember if I turned the curling iron off.”

A classic example of OCD at its most basic. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for her to turn around and drive back to check it. It was always off.

“I can’t go anywhere looking like this!”

She always looks great, like she has a perpetual secret plan to go somewhere.

“I’m sorry the house is such a wreck.”

My mom’s house always looks like the maid just left (she doesn’t have a maid), meticulously clean and everything resting perfectly in place. And my family wonders why I always see the messes in our house before I see the clean parts? I know I have hurt their feelings more than a few times after they have worked on the house and I still see the messy parts. I can’t help it.

Yeah, I’ve got issues.

My favorite podcast, Back to Work with Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin, recently spent all of episode 83 “Way of the Future” talking about how obsession and compulsion drive our lives. They got me to thinking.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” –Albert Einstein

The more I think about my behaviors–some may say unnecessary behaviors–the more I think I may have bigger problems. Or do I? Am I seeing patterns where there are? Am I feeding some kind of hypochondria? Maybe. Should I dismiss all of this as hypochondria, or would that dismissal in itself be a paranoid symptom of denial of problems I have either ignored or overlooked for years?

I have spent of a lot of my life wondering why I feel so scatterbrained. It is often difficult to focus on any one topic for long at all. I feel like the microbursts of information and entertainment served up on the Internet, an endless buffet of diversion served up on a boundless network of shiny platters, have only exacerbated the problem.

You had mail, an example

Email is something I use every day, and I occasionally test the waters by trying out some other email clients to see if I’ve missed something that may work better for me. While dabbling with several email clients the other day, a new mail alert sound caught my fancy. I enjoyed the change for a couple of days before cleaning out the latest round of programs that didn’t make the cut and returning to my complicated relationship with Apple Mail.

At some point after that I realized the new sound I liked was–poof–gone.

This was not a “big deal,” but it presented a considerable problem for me. I realize email notification sounds are an incredible distraction to my wandering mind; however, not knowing how that particular sound vanished was worse. I spent hours searching for the sound.

Obsession drives compulsion.

I finally found it, but what was the real cost? Is my life better for it? No, it isn’t.

Other tics

Tracking down the email sound was an unusual situation. Don’t worry. I’ve got plenty of other examples.

  • Closing the curtain to our laundry room
  • Keeping the sheets on our bed tucked in correctly
  • Making sure cabinets and drawers are closed all the way
  • Nothing should be hanging on the stairwell bannister (or door knobs for that matter)

These add up to another quick example of how my issues impact my family. Let’s say I walk by my son’s bedroom that may be more or less clean; however, his comforter is on the floor or sideways on the bed and his drawers are open with clothes hanging out.

Yes, he is 13. I know, but I can’t help that it makes me crazy and I tell him how crazy it makes me and we agree it takes less than 60 seconds to fix and sometimes we end up arguing about the 1-minute fix for an hour or longer. By the time it’s over we are both upset, and for what?

And once one thing has caught my eye, everything catches my eye. Why is that scrap of paper in the floor? Why can’t anyone close the curtain to our laundry room in the hall? Who left bread crumbs on the kitchen counter? Why is there peanut butter on the outside of the jar? Who left a dirty glass in the living room? Why is the TV still on with nobody in the room? Why are the remote controls on the couch when they should be on the table?!

They look at me like I’m bonkers no matter how simple my requests seem to me, but it is incredibly important to me. I cannot unclench until those things are taken care of; therefore, I am perpetually clenched. I rarely feel relaxed. That carries over into my attitude and my insomnia because I cannot stop thinking about it.

I try to keep my household guidelines simple to help them help me.

  1. Be respectful.
  2. If you open it, close it.
  3. If you turn it on, turn it off.
  4. If you drop something, pick it up.
  5. If you make a mess, clean it up.

Noise pollution

Noisy places frustrate me. Crowded restaurants. High school football game. All of the individual sounds gather together into a single cacophony of white noise before entering my brain leaving no discernible stream that makes sense to me. As a result, I look down and avoid eye contact to prevent conversations I know I won’t be able to hear. Some probably wonder why I am so rude. “Did he really just walk away while I was talking to him?”

I eventually reach a point where I even get angry that people try to talk to me. I am angry, but that rage is focused on my broken brain that won’t let me join in the fun. I begin to feel trapped and want nothing more than to escape.

Diagnosis

Several years ago my doctor confirmed my armchair diagnosis of adult Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).

ADD: any of a range of behavioral disorders occurring primarily in children, including such symptoms as poor concentration, hyperactivity, and impulsivity

I may focus intently on one thing (like trying to find an email notification sound). The intensity of my focus isn’t some preternatural ability; it is compulsion driven by obsession. Focus isn’t something I’m good at. It’s something I have to do for some reason.

My issues are typical nerd behavior and align with Michael Lopp’s field guide, The Nerd Handbook.

“These control issues mean your nerd is sensitive to drastic changes in his environment. Think travel. Think job changes. These types of system-redefining events force your nerd to recognize that the world is not always or entirely a knowable place, and until he reconstructs this illusion, he’s going to be frustrated and he’s going to act erratically. I develop an incredibly short fuse during system-redefining events and I’m much more likely to lose it over something trivial and stupid.” —The Nerd Handbook

Lopp, aka @rands on Twitter, also describes Nerd Attention Deficit Disorder.

Folks, I’m a nerd. I need rapid fire content delivery in short, clever, punch phrases. Give me Coupland, give me Calvin’n’Hobbes, give me Asimov, give me The Watchmen. I need this type of content because I’m horribly afflicted with NADD (Nerd Attention Deficit Disorder). —N.A.D.D.

Thanks to Merlin and Dan, my eyes are a little more open to my issues. After tinkering with this article for several days I’m putting it to rest unresolved. I appreciate their comments and hope by following some of Dan’s advice about mindfulness and meditation with new understanding, that I can find some rest.

Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name

Notice anything different? No, not my hair. New glasses? Nope. I’ve had these a while now. OK, I’ll tell you. It’s the next iteration of Carrying Stones. Welcome back!
I used Squarespace for a while. Version 5 was different in a pretty cool way that I kind of liked before the shininess of Squarespace 6 captured my attention. It didn’t take long before the gilding began to flake off. The new layout engine in version 6 is pretty slick and probably perfect for some people, but the OCD control freak in me couldn’t handle its laid back path to design.

Put it on the right. Put it on the right. New column? Sure. Whatever.
So I landed here in my own personalized installation of Movable Type. It’s been good enough for John Gruber and Jason Kottke for a decade and I hope it serves me well (sorry) for the next decade.

MoneyWell 2.0: So Far a Poor Return on Investment

As a general rule I prefer to give independent developers the benefit of the doubt, but MoneyWell 2 (produced by Kevin Hoctor at No Thirst Software) is pushing it.

MoneyWell was one of the indie apps that rose to fill the void left by Intuit’s malnourished and barely-supported Quicken. It uses the concept of budget buckets (similar to an envelope system) to manage personal finances. I like how it works and it has helped me rein in my household budget.

A recent paid update from MoneyWell 1.7 to 2.0 was featured on the App Store at the beginning of February. I considered investing in one of the other financial apps on the market, but wanted to continue using the app I’ve used for nearly two years now. So nearly a month ago I pitched my $23.99 in their hat and upgraded. No Thirst issued a hot fix update on the initial release date (from 2.0 to 2.0.1 on Feb. 8) to address critical flaws. Hoctor followed the update with an open letter to customers on Feb. 17 apologizing for screwing everything up.

There are bugs in MoneyWell 2 that we are fixing and a patch is forthcoming. We released a 2.0.1 patch quickly on the day MoneyWell 2 was released because we don’t want our customers to have to battle bugs in our software. The 2.0.2 patch will not be delayed a minute longer than necessary, but we also want to take the time to fix as many of the bugs you have reported as possible. After that patch, we will be working on a 2.1 release that addresses some features that we weren’t able to flesh out in our 2.0 release.

A half-baked release followed by an open letter to customers is not enough. As of today (February 25, 2012, you may have heard it’s my birthday) customers have yet to enjoy the 2.0.2 patch and my confidence is waning that a fix is coming at all.

Like a lot of folks these days, my budget is pretty tight and the financial software I depend on helps me navigate choppy waters. Right now I feel like I’m sailing without a rudder and see the sharks circling. Do I weigh anchor and wait for the sharks to attack or find another vessel to find safer passage?

Simple Writing Advice

The best writing advice is simple. Evan Thomas, former editor-at-large for Newsweek, is co-teaching a winter writing program for Harvard students with Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson (and, oh yeah, chairman of CNN and managing editor of Time Magazine). Thomas shared this insight about how difficult and crucial it is to write simple.

Writing, clear and simple | Harvard Gazette:

“Simple does not mean ‘simpleton,’ ” [Thomas] said. “Simple often means quite the opposite, that you’ve really thought through the problem and found a clear way to express a complex thought. But students see a lot of different models of writing and think that they have to sound sophisticated by writing convoluted sentences. Really, they should take complicated thoughts and figure out how to render them in a clear way.”

This is so true and such hard work to do well.

(Via Harvard Gazette)

Emmett Till in Sanford : The New Yorker

“This week, the state attorney in Tallahassee, Willie Meggs, told the Times, “The consequences of the law have been devastating around the state. It’s almost insane what we are having to deal with.” Gang members, drug dealers, and road-rage killers are, according to Meggs, all successfully invoking Stand Your Ground. “The person who is alive always says, ‘I was in fear that he was going to hurt me.’ … And the other person would say, ‘I wasn’t going to hurt anyone.’ But he is dead. That is the problem they are wrestling with in Sanford.”
That is one of the problems they are wrestling with in Sanford.”

Great writing by William Finnegan to close this tragic story from the New Yorker. Via @davepell’s newsletter Next Draft. You should subscribe.

Boondoggle? Seriously?

File this incredibly shortsighted ReadWriteWeb editorial away. It will come in handy when all computers are expected to have a Retina-like display.

Apple’s Brilliant Boondoggle: MacBook Pro Retina Display:

“‘Until you saw it, you didn’t know you wanted it,’ adds Frank Gillett, another Forrester Research analyst.”

Wow, they really blow it with this one. If people only had things they didn’t know they wanted until they saw it, we would have no innovation. We would all be watching news about about room-sized computers on our newfangled black-and-white television sets.